Upon arriving at church recently, I found a postcard in our mailbox from a counseling center. They want to help more and more people, and are sending notices to that effect.
On the front of the postcard is a couple obviously in love. Obviously? Well, yes—both, bronzed by the sun, are wearing all white as he carries her easily on his back; her arms wrap tightly around his neck. Both are laughing, even—I think—happily.
If all that’s not love, what is?
I get the sense that whatever problems this couple had are far behind them. Sure they’ve had their rocky times. But now (I imagine post-counseling) they’ve donned the white clothes and it’s not at all a surprise that the camera has caught them—once again!—convulsed in laughter and at ease.
(One side note: their teeth are blazing white! Doesn’t anyone drink coffee anymore?)
I opened the website advertised on the card and saw that this counseling center’s method doesn’t just make a way through life, it blazes a triumphant trail. Depression isn’t merely beaten back; happiness—the white-clothed, embracing kind—takes its place.
The question this postcard raises for me is: What should I expect from this life? Or, what am I expected to tolerate? Must every unhappiness be eradicated? Is my inner turmoil necessarily a psychological failing? Is all my rending of heart just so much morbidity?
Well, after taking in this postcard, it was time to work. I opened up psalms in order to help me find words to pray. Here, the song of ascent I came to:
To you I lift up my eyes,
O you who are enthroned in the heavens!
Behold, as the eyes of servants
look to the hand of their master,
as the eyes of a maidservant
to the hand of her mistress,
so our eyes look to the LORD our God,
till he has mercy upon us.
Have mercy upon us, O LORD, have mercy upon us,
for we have had more than enough of contempt.
Our soul has had more than enough
of the scorn of those who are at ease,
of the contempt of the proud.
What a strange descriptor for those outside of God – ‘those at ease.’ To some degree, deciding to follow Christ entails the choice to be bothered.
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